Beautiful Sinner
by SociallyUnstable
Summary: Vulnerability was something that I was unfamiliar with and in this moment I could not believe that I was even myself anymore. Living was no longer a requirement, it was a choice, and I always had a choice. They say 'where there's a will there's a way'. But then again it depends on what your will is. And how much it corrupts you to the point of madness and inhumane determination.


**AN: Hello there. This is my first hunger games fic and like one of the first stories I've written since my break from writing. I hope you enjoy it and like just a heads up, there is a lot of profanity and like *cough* sexual behavior and like plenty of inappropiacy so like sorry. Or not, if you don't mind...uh ok bye :)  
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**Chapter 1 - Where it all began  
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Johanna

Trees everywhere.

Why the fuck are there so many fucking trees?

"Jo" My younger sister groaned "My legs hurt"

_'Well then suck it up and don't be such a little bitch.' _I thought.

But I didn't say this. Danielle was incredibly emotional and was as weak as a ballsack. She had the same dark ebony hair as me although hers was in two pigtails instead of a high ponytail like mine. Everybody claimed she was an exact replica of me when I was that age but I refused to believe them. She had brown eyes the colour of a newly polished mahogany table and I had brown eyes the colour of rotting treebark. She had a small slender frame and I had an annoyingly gangly frame. She was innocent and pure in every sense and I was the epitome of a demon.

"Sit over there" I told her, placing my bag down and pointing in the direction of a tree stump that was small enough for her to sit on. She clumsily dragged the wheelbarrow along beside her and perched her thin frame onto the impromptu seat.

I took my axe out of the side of my backpack and began hacking away at the tree. It was a small oak, probably double the size of me and didn't look too heavy. I could probably get about half a cord of wood with it. The sun beamed down onto me as I worked, forcing me to remove my black leather jacket. My hair was sticking to the back of my neck and my ponytail was slowly loosening. I had never been one to worry about my appearance but I figured that in this moment I was probably looking less attractive than rotting meat.

"Why don't we bring Willow anymore?" Dani asked curiously, interrupting my thoughts.

I ignored her.

"Jo!" She called out "Can you hear me?"

"Shut up!" I exclaimed at her "It's none of your fucking business, okay?"

"Fine." She said calmly "Bitch" I heard her mutter under her breath.

After about eight hours of me abrasively chopping up wood and my sister singing woodland songs to herself as if she was fucking snow white, I piled the wood onto the wheelbarrow and dragged it home.

After sending Dani to bed I sat in the living room for a while and stared at the contents. Heaven forbid this place was to ever catch fire, there was so much wood. Fucking trees everywhere and everything was made of wood as if we were complaining about the lack of flammable materials in our district.

On the wall was a family picture. It was taken about six years ago when I looked like an approachable human being and before my mother had died. What a woman she was. I hated walking down the street and having everyone stare at me and whispering things. But at least before it had been for one reason. Now it was for two. It was easier when I was a child and before the other children were aware of what my mother did for a living before she had married my father. I didn't even understand until I was about eleven years old and I walked into a shop to find the owner staring at me. It wasn't until she whispered something like 'whore's daughter' to an oblivious customer when I realised. And everything made sense.

I don't even understand why she did it. She was one of the best carvers in the district and made the most beautiful and intricate patterns on almost everything. The frame that the picture was in was beautifully engraved with swirls and loops all aligned in a way that made you wonder how anyone could produce something so abstract. She was so beautiful, on the outside and inside. It wasn't her fault that she had to do what she did to look after herself and since I've basically thrown my father into a pool of bankruptcy I'm starting to understand why she did it.

But never ever will I allow anyone else I love to be exploited like she was. It won't happen. Not to me, not to my sister.

At around midnight my dad and brother arrived home from work, both equally exhausted and drained. My dad was a tall and angry looking man, at about six foot two. My brother was an identical height but instead of being built and muscular, he was thin and lanky. I guess we'd all inherited that from our mother. They both had the signature Mason mud brown hair and brown eyes with the same boring ivory skin.

"I made pie" I announced, giving my father a small smile. He grunted and trailed off into the kitchen begrudgingly. He didn't want to have anything to do with me at the moment but it was either he ate my food or starved to death and his silence told me that it wasn't a self-unanimous decision.

"What kind of pie?" Aspen asked curiously.

"Whatever meat that was being sold at a reduced price at the butchers this morning" I shrugged "Maybe horse"

He gave me a curt nod and sat down on the wooden rocking chair across from me. He smiled silently to himself as if thinking of a childhood memory.

"It's not your fault" He said for the hundredth time, interpreting my silence as a message of self-hatred.

"I ruined it for everybody" I sighed.

"Maybe" He shrugged "But we both fucked up, remember?"

"When are you going to tell dad?" I asserted.

There was a long uncomfortable silence and the only thing we could hear was the sound of an owl hooting in the distance outside.

"When he's...calmed down"

"You mean when he's stopped hating me?" I sniggered "The answer is never"

"He doesn't hate you" I heard the lies in my brothers words. They came out oozing with deceit and dripping with deception.

"Really? So I got him fired from the best job he's ever had and he doesn't hate me? Like, I ruined it for everyone Pen, not just him. We don't have money, or stability and we're pretty much swimming in a pile of bills and debt, we've-"

"Aspen" My father calmly walked into the room and eyed my brother up "Where's your pay?"

"What?" The look in Aspen's eyes was a look of pure unadulterated terror "What?" He repeated nervously.

"I said" He made his way over to the corner where he was isolated and looked down at him like a lion looks down at a mouse "Where is your pay for this week?"

"Uhhh...I'm saving it" Aspen babbled nervously.

"Why in God's name are you saving it?" My father's deep voice was increasing with every syllable.

"F-for myself" My brother cleared his throat then stood up from his chair, towering over my father "Problem?"

"Yeah. You're eighteen now and if you can't make even the smallest contribution towards the provision of this family then you need to get out!" My dad exclaimed carelessly, probably waking up Danielle. Arguments made me sick.

They paid no attention to me as I stood up and trailed out of the house without a jacket. The night air was dry and warm, the fires from homes insulating the whole town. I trekked down the roads, out into a Forrest that was scattered with tree stumps. As I hopped from stump to stump I noticed a flash of light in the distance somewhere. It flickered for a moment and then disappeared. Hopping down silently, I pledged to investigate the source of the mysterious light and came across a small house that looked as if it was bound to fall down any day from now. It was charred with a barred off door and looked as if it had been burned down a few years before and nobody had been bothered to fix it up again. The side window had been broken and I placed my hands on the sides, where there was no leftover glass shards, then hoisted myself up. Unfortunately the window ledge was not as solid as I thought it was and it ended up crumbling, sending my hand smashing down onto the broken glass and me, falling inside in a rather cacophonous manner, landing on my already damaged hands.


End file.
